Ben Klein wrote:
2009/9/2 Scott Ritchie scott@open-vote.org:
Ben Klein wrote:
2009/9/2 Scott Ritchie scott@open-vote.org:
Austin English wrote:
Since when is a mirror a bad thing?
It isn't, of course, however it can't replace the role of apt server (which would require users to manually alter their sources.list file).
Just like how they have to alter their sources.list to get to budgetdedicated in the first place? The point is that they have a backup solution for when the main apt server is down.
Note that Debian mirrors are apt mirrors and are occasionally out of sync - c'est la vie - and the installer actually asks you what mirror you want to use so it can configure sources.list.
The budgetdedicated actually was mirrored for a while (using nslookup round-robin redirection) and it created a bunch of problems.
So don't do nslookup round-robin redirection. It's silly for mirrors. The point of a mirror is you have a completely distinct server somewhere else that provides the same data, thus creating data security. If the main server is down, the mirror can be accessed - but yes, it has to be explicitly accessed (by a modified sources.list in an apt mirror).
I do keep a local mirror of all the content, and as of now I actually have two separate budgetdedicated servers hosting the data (wine.budgetdedicated.com and wineold.budgetdedicated.com). More doesn't hurt, of course.
It's more reliable to just have a mirror of the archive page and let people install manually in the case that it's offline, since I seriously don't expect another outage like this again. Then the manual install will be updated automagically on the next release when the server comes back up.
You don't need to tell me about versioning in apt :P but it won't be more reliable to mirror only the archives and not the apt server. If you mirror the full apt repository, then you get load sharing. If you only mirror the archives, then the mirror is only used by people who know and can be bothered to install manually.
Sure, it doesn't hurt to mirror the apt archive too, but I'm not sure how much actual load balancing is going to happen at this point since it will require a manual change on each user. Once Karmic comes out in 2 months, new users will be pointed to the PPA instead. I could also point Jaunty and earlier users there as well, albeit with longer instructions.
It was only offline for the whole weekend because I was physically out of town away from the internet and genuinely unaware of it. I should probably give someone my phone number so they can text me if needed.
I don't mean to offend, but you seem a bit possessive about the apt repository.
I want to phase it out and get rid of it. Funny kind of possessiveness ;)
Thanks, Scott Ritchie